UPDATES
FROM FOLKWALES...

Paula Shinton has festival tickets to both
Shrewsbury and Village Pump for sale, and she will consider
reasonable offers. If you to want to buy the tickets, contact her
on
www.facebook.com/paula.shinton

Bethesda-based band 9bach have triumphed with their four-star album
Tincian, carrying off the Album Of The Year prize at the 2015
BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, which was held in the Wales Millennium
Centre in Cardiff Bay.

They were the first Welsh band to win an award in the competition's
15-year history, and they capped their night with a performance at
the ceremony in the Donald Gordon Theatre. Welsh-speaking actress
and singer Lisa Jen Brown, who set up the band with her husband,
guitarist Martin Hoyland, thanked everyone connected in 9bach's
circle: "Especially everyone at Real World - they really are a most
amazing record company."

9bach held the vast stage with a stunning version of 'Ffarwęl',
taken from a North Wales historian and poet's collection of
villagers' writings from down the ages, magnificently filled out by
the 50-strong Penrhyn Male Voice Choir; this poem tells of a
quarryman's last day at the slate workings.

There was also a Good Tradition Award for folk historian, former
head of the BBC's light entertainment department and well-loved icon
Dr Meredydd Evans, known to all as Meręd, who died aged 95 in
February. Editor Mick Tems has written an obituary on Meręd, which
can be seen in this issue of FolkWales Online Magazine.

Meręd's widow, Phyllis Kinney, could not be there for this
prestigious occasion - however, his daughter Eluned accepted the
posthumous award, and called for Wales to create a digital archive
of folk music, arranged by the National Library of Wales, St Fagans
Museum and Welsh politicians. She said that setting up the archive
by July 2017 was "perfectly achievable", and added: "I'm not my
father's daughter for nothing."

There was also a tribute by Cerys Matthews; she outlined Meręd's
achievements, including his rich collection of folk songs, his
inspiration in producing the BBC Wales Welsh folk progammes,
including the series Hob Y Deri Dando, and his passionate lifelong
campaign to preserve and promote yr iaith Cymraeg, the Welsh
language. She revealed: "I've got to let you in on a little secret -
before his death, he had been told about the award, and he was over
the moon about it."

The awards ceremony saw a host of folk music stars come together for
an evening of recognition and performances. Catrin Finch, who has
released the new Tides album, praised the innovation in
traditional music, and 10 Mewn Bws - ten Welsh musicians selected by
Welsh traditions organisation trac and their projects officer,
Angharad Jenkins - created an old recording of Meręd singing 'Bachgen
Ifanc Ydwyf', with singer Gwilym Bowen Rhys (of rock/pop band Y
Bandana and alt-folk brother/sisters trio Plu) taking the lead in a
new traditional arrangement.

The 16th annual ceremony was presented by Radio 2 Folk Show host,
Mark Radcliffe, and Gaelic singer Julie Fowlis. A Lifetime
Achievement Award went to folk music legend Cat Stevens, also known
as Yusuf Islam. Singer David Gray presented him with his award, and
he performed his new song, 'Cat and The Dog Trap', and his 1970
classic, 'Moonshadow'.

Songwriter Loudon Wainwright III, who performed 'I Knew Your Mother'
and 'Double Lifetime', was also presented with a Lifetime
Achievement Award by BBC 6 Music presenter Tom Robinson. There were
a host of celebrities and musicians handing out the awards,
including Gavin And Stacey star and scriptwriter Ruth Jones. Ruth
presented Nancy Kerr with the Folk Singer Of The Year award, and
singer-songwriter Billy Bragg presented Peggy Seeger and Calum
MacColl with the Best Original Song award.

The evening also saw the late singer Ewan MacColl inducted into the
Radio 2 Folk Awards Hall of Fame. After the presentation ceremony,
Cerys Matthews said that this year Wales had turned the corner when
it came to recognition: "I sincerely hope that this isn't going to
be a one-off."

BBC Radio 2 controller Bob Shennan said: "The Radio 2 Folk Awards is
an annual celebration of the nation's longstanding devotion to the
folk music scene. It is wonderful to be able to bring together such
a high calibre line-up of artists and recognise their achievements
over the past 12 months."

The great Welsh icon Dr Meredydd Evans - masterful folk singer,
Welsh language activist who campaigned for non-violent and peaceful
protests, Doctor of Philosophy, folksong collector, head of the
BBC's Welsh light entertainments, writer, editor, historian - died
on February 21, 2015 after a short illness at the age of 95. The
Sain record company and trac (the all-Wales folk development
organisation) both said that Wales had lost the mainspring of the
nation's folk tradition.

Known to everybody as Meręd, he was a notable performer of the
rich treasure trove of folk music written in the Welsh language. His
award-winning recordings of his own unaccompanied folk songs and his
published editions in collaboration with his American-born wife and
professional singer, Phyllis Kinney, have helped to preserve Welsh
musical legacy and promote it world-wide. In 2004, Sain released a
double-CD tribute compilation of Meręd delivering 50 folk songs,
including the 1962 Delyse recording of A Concert Of Welsh Folk
Songs, with Phyllis and Russian harpist Maria Korchinska
("Tradition dressed up to suit the audience", according to Phyllis),
four tracks previously recorded on the Sain album Canu Werin,
and the landmark collection, 28 folksongs which were first released
in 1977 on Sain C756. In addition, trac published a book and
accompanying CD of 23 traditional folksongs entitled
Ffylantin-tw!, taken from the Meręd and Phyllis collection and
edited by Robin Huw Bowen. The CD featured many well-known
traditional artists, including Arfon Gwilym, Dafydd Idris, Greg
Lynn, Gwenan Gibbard, Huw Roberts, Linda Griffiths, Lynne Denman,
Siân James and Stephen Rees. The book and CD were launched to a full
house at the Vale Of Glamorgan National Eisteddfod, with Robin and
all the musicians singing live.

Phyllis said: "The traditional songs of Wales have been very
important to him - in singing them, in hearing others sing them, and
in talking about them in lecture halls, on the radio, or in small
groups of other folksong enthusiasts."

Meręd was born in the village of Llanegryn, near the coast in
southern Merionethshire, the 11th child in the family. His love of
Welsh folk song can be attributed to three women - his mother, who
always sang and was a rich tradition-bearer; Mrs Enid Parry, who
aroused Meręd's interest in folksong when he was a student at the
University College of North Wales; and Phyllis, who passed on to
Meręd her knowledge of folk songs from many different countries.

His mother learned folksongs from a foreman farmer and passed
them down to Meręd. In an interview with the Smithsonian
Institution, He said: "My mother sang constantly - it was the thing
to do, to sit around the table, in front of the fire, and sing. My
sister had a lovely voice - she was terrific. All my four sisters
went to London to work as cooks, as maids and so on, and they were
all lost to Wales. Four people from one small village, and we were
just one family - but it was very common."

When Meręd was three or four years old, he heard his mother
singing 'Si Hwi Hwi', a slave-mother's lullaby which came from the
pen of a Welshman from Ffestiniog, who lived in the 19th century.
The poet emigrated to the States, went to work in the slate quarries
in Vermont and became involved in the anti-slavery campaign. As a
revered and respected folk-singer and collector of Welsh songs,
Meręd sang it on stage at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington;
the song's message rang down through the ages to the 20th-century
American audience, just as alive and vibrant as it used to be.

When Meręd was young, the whole family moved north to Tanygrisiau
to work in the quarries at Blaenau Ffestiniog. "My father would have
killed me rather than let me work in the quarries - but I wanted to
work in the quarries," he said. "All my friends were working in the
quarries - it was natural, you know." A school-leaver at 14, he
started preparing for the Calvinistic Methodist ministry. When Mered
was just 17, his father died of 'the dust'.

Meręd was brought up speaking Welsh, a Cymro Cymraeg, with the
proud and strong culture of the Welsh language thriving in him.
However, he said: "In the 1930s, in the Great Depression in America
and over here, I didn't worry about the Welsh language, because it
was okay in my community. I didn't see the threatening forces, which
were there; the influences here were primarily English, but
naturally, why not? We had been living right next to the most
powerful language in the world. The political power of one language
is frightening.

"Once I left my home community, going outside and so on, I had to
take a look back at myself; and you began to realise that there were
pressures that threatened your very existence. You had to struggle
consciously for your identity - not because your culture is better
than anyone else's, or that your culture is any greater. That's not
it. It just happens to be yours. You make sense of your
life in terms of that culture, and it is that basic.

"I think the idea that speaking one language will solve problems
is baloney. People quarrel in one language. We can be just as stupid
in one language as we are in many, and we can be just as aggressive,
just as selfish - we can also be just as kind. We should celebrate
the success of a huge variety of cultures."

A convinced pacifist, Meręd faced a military tribunal in World
War II. He was registered as a conscientious objector and was
granted unconditional exemption by a tribunal early in 1940, on the
grounds of his religious beliefs. He said in 2009: "I maintain my
Christian beliefs more than ever with these wars which occur today.
The creation of the atomic bomb and weapons like that mean you
wouldn't have a world war, but global destruction. There's nothing
that could justify that.

"I know there are people who believe in war as a way to sort out
problems, that it's the best choice of a bad lot, and I respect
their opinion. They have the right to believe it, but I can't
agree."

The war years saw him gaining a First in Philosophy, and he was
appointed Tutor in Philosophy and Political Theory at Coleg Harlech
in 1947 and worked there until the 1950s, following up as assistant
editor of the Welsh newspaper Y Cymro. When Phyllis was a musical
student, her imagination was fired by her brilliant teacher, a
Welshman called Gomer Llewelyn Jones. "I'm from Pontiac, Detroit,"
she said. "I'd never heard of Wales." Phyllis learned to love the
Welsh language. She came to Wales when she was in an opera company,
met Meręd, who was by now working for the BBC, and subsequently
married. Their daughter, Eluned, was born a year later.

Phyllis was getting a lot of work from the BBC, but America still
beckoned. The family went to the States, where Mered entered
Princeton University, graduated with a Ph.D in Philosophy and got a
job as an Instructor in Philosophy at Boston. Meręd loved folksong
and was always singing at parties. He and Phyllis were inseparable –
they often performed together at events. By now, Meręd had a
considerable reputation, and Mo Asch recorded him for Smithsonian
Folkways (the great Mo said: "I can't understand a word, but I like
it.") The New York Times awarded Meręd's LP, Welsh Folk Songs, in
the top ten of the year. Much later, when Meręd and Phyllis had
settled in Anglesey, the legendary US radio presenter Studs Terkel,
an avid fan, rang. He had journeyed to Britain to interview two
famous people – Meręd and Bertrand Russell!

Meręd got a job as a TV producer in BBC Wales, and he later
progressed to the post of head of light entertainment. His
inspirational leadership saw the birth of a Welsh-language folk
series, Hob Y Deri Dando, the Ryan A Ronnie comedy
series and others - but he foresaw a Welsh-language TV channel as
the only solution, and he resigned his post. He was a senior figure
in Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (the Welsh Language Society) and a
life-long advocate of non-violent revolutionary means to promote the
interests of Welsh speakers. In 1979, Meręd along with two fellow
academics, Ned Thomas and Pennar Davies, was sentenced by the
Carmarthen assizes for breaking into the Pencarreg television
transmitter in the campaign which would lead to the establishment of
the Welsh language broadcasting channel, S4C. Meręd was again in
court again in 1999, after refusing to pay his TV licence, stating
there had been a decrease in the amount of Welsh-language
broadcasting in the last ten years. In March, 2014, he backed
further peaceful demonstrations by Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg
following protests in Aberystwyth.

In April, 2007, the University of Wales published a volume for
Meręd and Phyllis, "a fully bilingual collection of critical essays
on various aspects of Welsh song and traditional music by Wales’
leading experts and musicologists to celebrate their contribution
not only to Welsh traditional music but to the very culture and
language of Wales."

In 2012, Meręd appeared on Gai Toms' album, Bethel, on
which he sang 'Cân y Dewis'.

In 2013, he was awarded 'Tywysydd' ('Guide') in the first ever
Paręd Gwyl Dewi Aberystwyth (St David's Day Parade) for his services
to Wales and the Welsh language.

Meręd and Phyllis settled in the remote village of Cwmystwyth,
Ceredigion in a cottage named Afallon. S4C Authority Chairman Huw
Jones paid him this tribute: "Meręd was probably the first Welsh
language pop star. With his velvety voice, his catchy songs and good
looks, he charmed a generation in the 40s and 50s as a member of
Triawd y Coleg. But he was much more than that. As a TV producer and
then head of entertainment at BBC Wales, he felt passionately the
need for popular programmes which would appeal across the nation,
and he knew what was needed to make them happen.

"Later, as a tireless campaigner, he provided inspiration and
leadership in the campaign which led to the setting up of S4C, and
he was a firm but courteous critic of the subsequent efforts of
Welsh broadcasters to reach their goals. With his ground-breaking
work, alongside his wife Phyllis, in popularising Welsh folk-songs
and as a respected academic philosopher and teacher, he was a
unique, significant and much-loved figure in the cultural life of
Wales."

Mick Tems

TRIO
TRIUMPH! FOXGLOVES DELIVER A WELSH/ENGLISH MUSICAL DELIGHT

April
1, 2015: The
Foxglove Trio are unique and a revelation; Mid-Wales singer Ffion Mair,
Swansea-born spectacular 'cellist and guitar player Cathy
Mason and Patrick Dean, melodeon player and 'cello player from
Yorkshire, stirred up a bubbling cauldron of inspiring and
exhilarating songs, tunes and absolutely lovely arrangements
that had the audience on the edge of their seats, grinning
broadly and shouting for more - in fact, the cheering hordes demanded
a double encore. It was a great night!

For their first set, The Foxgloves exploded into 'The Owlesbury
Lads', the lyrics and melody written and composed by Cathy and
taken from a traditional song found in a book called Folk Songs
Of Hampshire. Cathy lives in Hampshire now and is currently
employed as Assistant Musical Director at Lord Wandsworth
College, and Ffion and Patrick live in Hertfordshire; but the
rich and vibrant Welsh tradition and the overflowing library of
English folklore proved a fertile hunting ground for the
Foxgloves' repertoire. The striking, most satisfying element is
the way The Foxgloves mine Welsh and English tradition, and
really enhance the programme by adding in snatches and tasty
spices of other songs and tunes. Their brilliant arrangements
and shimmering harmonies are just the icing on the cake.

Highlights were 'Selar Hill', by Valley Folk Club organiser Huw
Pudner and Chris Hastings; 'James Snooks', written by Hamish
Currie, Cardiff-based Scottish songwriter who was unfortunately
whisked away by his job; 'Colli Llanwddyn', poet Harri Webb's
lament about the drowning of Welsh villages to create reservoirs
for the benefit of England, adapted

for three of Mair's verses; and 'The Three Huntsmen', a
humorous song about three foolish Welshmen found in a book
belonging to Patrick's granny, influenced by the
singing of Welsh romanies Hywel and Manfri Wood. The Trio were
promoting their new album, These Gathered
Branches; there's a FolkWales CD review on this.

"For someone who doesn't like banjos - well, it's not really
your night, is it?" Dan's Walsh's one-liners come as thick and
fast as his firework virtuosity and eye-popping playing, singing
and songwriting. Dan doesn't just play his beloved banjo - he
lives it, tortured face and voice underlining the
hard-hitting lyrics, first attacking and then caressing his
instrument. The banjo responds to all this hard love, hitting
impossible notes, runs, and a myriad shower of sounds that knock
you over like an exhilarating waterfall. The whole show is
totally magnificent, and Dan's whirlwind performance just leaves
you breathless.

His cartwheeling banjo antics are what draws the crowds, but Dan
is a pretty outstanding guitarist, too; 'The Song Always Stays'
is one highlight. But Dan turns the tables on his set, and very
soon he's taking the whole Club on a totally amazing composition
called 'Switchback Reel', influenced by his tour in India and
packed with Far-eastern classical elements. It's a night to
remember - Mick Tems took the image and shot the video
(available soon).

DELYTH AND
ANGHARAD SERVE UP A DELICATE, LOVELY FEAST

February 25, 2015: Angharad Jenkins was born with Welsh
music in her ears - and her harp-playing mother Delyth made
quite sure of that. The pregnant Delyth played with Peter Stacey
and Stevie Wishart in the excellent trio Aberjaber, and the
"bump" was baby Angharad - and now she has grown into an
impressive fiddler, with several musical projects including the
sizzling Calan, Adran D, and accompanist to Brigyn and Blair
Dunlop under her belt. Both mother and daughter go by the
attractive name of DnA, and they have released a four-star debut
album; this was their first concert at Llantrisant Folk Club,
and members and guests revelled in the satisfying and wonderful
sound these two generated. DnA's unique music is completely
peaceful and satisfying, feeding on their rich tradition and, in
turn, spectacularly nourishing it.

Llantrisant Folk Club memberships are due now,
and Membership Secretary Olly Price reminds members that she will be
collecting Ł7 on Wednesday, January 7, 2014.

FESTIVAL
OFFER AND INVITE: ARE YOU INTERESTED?

The Upton-Upon-Severn Festival committee has
invited Llantrisant Folk Club to join the festival as one of the
Festival Clubs, providing them with an afternoon or evening “Club
Night” (emails Ned Clamp.) The terms and conditions will be
very similar to previous years (prices are estimates as at 1/11/14).

Club
membership of the Festival, costing Ł50, offers:
• Two free tickets and camping passes for the club leaders;
• Adult club members - Ł15 per head;
• Adult Camping - Ł15 per head;
• Accompanied Juniors (under 18): free admission and camping.
These prices are in comparison with a weekend ticket price in excess
of Ł50 plus camping.
Final prices have yet to be decided - the above are guidelines.

If the Folk Club was to buy membership of Upton Upon Severn Folk
Festival, would you as a member be interested in taking up the offer
of cheap festival tickets?

The
festival runs from the 1st to the 4th of May. If we get enough
interest, then we will go ahead with this. Please state your
interest in principle by replying to me at the email address below.

The Llantrisant Mari Lwyd celebrated 34 years of welcoming the
Winter Solstice on December 22, 2014 with visits to Llantrisant
area pubs, the antics and the traditional singing and playing
shot on video. The Mari Lwyd Party met in the car park of The
Dynevor Arms, Groes Faen, where
this video captured
the festive atmosphere; then it was on to
The Miskin
Arms and Old Town pubs including
The New Inn in Swan Street
and The
Bear in The Bullring. Norman Jenkins took the video in The
Dynevor Arms and Mick Tems shot the footage in The Miskin Arms.

HO! HO!
HO! CHRISTMAS PARTY CAPTURED ON CAMERA

Llantrisant Folk Club ended the Old Year with the Christmas
Party, and Paul Seligman shot and edited
this video to make a
cameo of some of singers, musicians, poets and reciters who made
the fabulous evening go with a swing. The video includes Meg
Sykes, Donald Johnson, Gwyn Austin, Ray James, Julie Croad, Rob
Bradshaw, Ned Clamp, Pat Smith, The Mari Lwyd and the Plygain
singers, with a special spot by Chris Parkinson (melodeon) and
Emily Sanders (fiddle).

ANDY AND
JILLIE TIE THE KNOT - CONGRATULATIONS FRO

M
ALL OF US!

Llantrisant Folk Club members Andy Jackson and Jillie
Hambley celebrated their wedding in The Isle Of Wight on Friday,
December 5, 2014. Andy was a retired sound engineer at BBC Wales
in Llandaff, Cardiff, and he lived at Pontyclun; he was also
acting secretary of the Club. They later moved to the beautiful
tranquility of The Isle Of Wight, Jillie's home base, where they
planned a quiet wedding.

And even though the many miles meant that we couldn't be there,
the both of you will remain deep in our hearts. Llongyfarchiadau!

LIFE
BEGINS AT EIGHTY - HAPPY BIRTHDAY, NORMAN!

Llantrisant Folk Club member Norman Jenkins celebrated his
eightieth birthday on November 26, with balloons and a big
birthday cake, provided by Lindsay and Greg's son, Huw - and The
Birthday Boy generously paid for a slap-up buffet for all the
members to enjoy. Always a regular floor singer and reciter, Norman read the
well-loved and artfully clever Jack 'The Bard' Sully poem, 'Life Begins At
Eighty', followed at half-time by the cutting of the cake, the
blowing-out of candles and
all the Club members singing 'Happy Birthday

/Penblwydd Hapus'.
An ardent member of the Llantrisant R.A.T.S. (Real Ale Tasting
Society), Norman invents his witty parodies, his hilarious poems
and his very funny songs - and the Folk Club really appreciate
it.

TOM'S GONE
TO HIGH-LOW - AND THE DELIGHTED CROWD LOVES IT

Tom Lewis, 24-year veteran of Her Majesty's diesel submarines,
was on top form with his high-energy show consisting of sea
songs, shanties and his own well-known and well-loved choruses
including 'Marching Inland', 'The Last Shanty (A Sailor's Not A
Sailor'), 'H.M.C.S. Sackville' and more. Tom's strong voice
soared above the high notes and swooped among the low notes as
he vividly told nautical stories in song. Paul Seligman shot
this video of Tom
singing 'The Sailor's Consolation' by Charles Dibdin, 'An
Ex-Sailor's Life' and 'The Last Shanty' - with a fascinating
tale of radar experiments aboard what he called the rustiest
ship in the Royal Navy, H.M.S. Intrepid.

FOLK CLUB
MARKS REMEMBRANCE DAY WITH SEEGER'S PEACE SONG

Llantrisant Folk Club marked Remembrance Day with the Pete Seeger
classic, 'Where Have All The Flowers Gone?' on Wednesday,
November 12. Mighty-voiced Jim Mageean and Graeme Knights sang up
a stormer as part of their mini-tour of Wales, and they threw in a
collection of WW1 soldiers' parodies (see
the video here.) The anti-war Seeger anthem, with the help of
commčre Pat Smith, was organised
by the Armistice Pals
website, which includes Peggy Seeger, the wonderful harp diva
Sîan James, Dave Swarbrick, Judy
Dyble, ex-Oysterband member Ray Cooper, Johnny Coppin, Gavin
Davenport and many, many folk artists. Just for the record, you
can see this
video, shot by Mick Tems; another video, shot by DapperFM's
Acoustic Routes
presenter Dave Chamberlain and his children, should be uploaded
soon.

MARI LWYD
GOES OUT ON HER WINTER SOLSTICE TOUR

The Llantrisant Mari Lwyd will be doing
her rounds and making merry on the Sunday before Christmas,
December 21, 2014. The Mari Party will meet at 12 noon in The Dynevor
Arms, Groes Faen, and the Mari's timetable (very approximately)
will be:

1pm:
The Miskin Arms, Miskin;

1.45pm: The Penny Farthing, Southgate (where the new landlord/lady
will welcome us);

2.30pm: Llantrisant Old Town, including The New Inn, The Bear and a
private house - just come looking for us!

4.30pm:
Cross Inn, in Cross Inn;

6.30pm (approx - this is an optional trip): The Boar's Head, Tyle Garw
- Landlord Wayne Owen's charity do with
choirs, real ales and Christmas merriment. The Mari will make an
appearance and collect that evening for Wayne's charity.

Donations and contributions (except for The
Boar's Head) go to the Marie Curie Hospice, Cardiff And The Vale,
Penarth.

REVIEW:
MAGNIFICENT, LOVELY CALAN TOP A STUNNING EVENING

November 5, 2014:
The Athletic Club Lounge Bar, home of Llantrisant Folk Club, was
packed to the brim as the eager audience waited to see and hear
the slimmed-down Ambassadors Of Welsh Cool on their Up Close And
Personal tour in Wales - smaller, cosy venues, no PA, no
costumes, just tunes, songs and spectacular clog-dancing, the
way it all started. Calan exceed their expectations to an
exhilarating degree with a whirlwind, carefree set that had the
massed rows really gawping. That wasn't applause, but the
collective sound of jaws dropping! The band absolutely sizzles
as tune after tune spills and bubbles out like an erupting
geyser. Patrick Rimes plays the Welsh pipes and fiddle with
joyous expert precision, and his musical rapport with grinning,
sparkling fiddler Angharad Sîan
goes from strength to strength; guitarist Sam Humphries bolsters
the band with a myriad of inspirational, percussive and totally
powerful chords; while Bethan Rhiannon pouts beautifully, her
fingers a blur on the accordion keyboards, her pretty voice
holding its own with the crazy, sexy sound and her clogs
resembling a machine-gun rattle as she dances triumphantly.
Calan are on fire, and how.

Why smaller, cosy venues? The band have played many major
festivals, from Cropredy to Glasgow's Celtic Connections, with
many appearances at the gigantic Lorient Interceltique. They
have been shocked by the amount of cash that is wasted in
petrol, and they're cutting costs by buying a touring van - all
contributions gratefully received. From the opening 'Slip Jigs'
to 'The Dancing Stag', through manager and master songwriter Huw Williams'
dreamy 'Jonah' to the heartachingly melodic 'Y Gwydr Glas',
Calan hold the audience in the palms of their hands. There is so
much good-natured and enthusiastic energy being generated that
the band could light up the entire Athletic Club.

The long-awaited father-daughter clog-off between Huw and Bethan
is the icing on the cake. With the rest of the band
accompanying, long-time Eisteddfod champion Huw dances a
blinder, only to be matched by Bethan; the audience just loves
it. And as long as the crowds pour in to be entertained and
entranced by Calan, the whole big wonderful wide world of the
folk scene can only reap the benefits.

- Mick Tems

CALAN
VIDEOS UPLOADED NOW
- YOU CAN ALMOST TASTE THE VIBES!

Did you miss Calan? Do you long to see them? Video shots of the clog-off between Bethan and Huw have
been uploaded and are available via
this link - and Calan blast into their Slip Jigs
opening set, on
this
captureama.

October 28, 2014:
The six South
Wales musicians who make up the Garth Mountain Boys are
neighbours and long-standing good friends of Llantrisant Folk
Club, and the Pontyclun Institute Athletic Club's lounge bar
was packed as the grinning Garthies gave us their
mixture of good-time Americana with some old-time bluegrass
fare, sprinkled with dashes of Steve Earle's 'Galway Girl',
the traditional 'Man Of Constant Sorrow', from the smash-hit
movie Oh Brother Where Art Thou?, The Eagles' 'Peaceful
Easy Feeling' and even John Lennon's 'Norwegian Wood' thrown
in. Ulsterman Chris Tweed, playing the dobro, had joined Blind
River Scare for a while; but now he was back permanently, and
his warm smile made it plain that he was glad to be gigging.
The Garthies gave it their all, from Richard 'Rich Pickings'
Smith on the banjo right through to Alan Kramer on the guitar,
and the audience loved it.

The band name comes
from the Garth Mountain, with the village of Gwaelod-y-Garth
nestling in its shadow, made famous in the Chris Monger film
The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill But Came Down A Mountain,
starring Hugh Grant and Tara Fitzgerald. No doubt about it -
The Garth Mountain Boys definitely are a loveable fun combo,
and they're old mates as well!

- Mick Tems

REVIEW:
BEVERLY & JOHN SPIRIT US AWAY TO OLD-TIME APPALACHIA

October
22, 2014:
Beverly Smith and John Grimm are based in the beautiful little
town of Dahlonega in North Georgia's Lumpkin County, with the
Appalachian foothills just rising and the Smokey Mountains
National Park on the horizon. They were on an extended
European tour, and their showcase night coincided with the
Pontyclun Arts Council festival - and Llantrisant Folk Club
threw in a free evening to their support for the council and
to show their appreciation and thanks for Pontyclun Institute
Athletic Club.

John is owner of the
Vintage Music store in Dahlonega and an award-winning fiddler
and guitar player; Beverly is one of the most respected guitar
players in old-time music, and she is also in demand as a
singer, a fiddler, a banjo player and a dance caller as well.
She plays in a duo with Alice Gerrard, the undisputed queen of
old-time music, and her playing can be heard on several
well-known artists' CDs, including Bruce Molsky and Mick
Moloney, and Garrison Keillor's radio show The Prairie Home
Companion. Together, John and Beverly harmonise perfectly and
brilliantly; their guitar playing and fiddle duets seem to
merge into one big marvellous mountain tradition. It's as if
the Club members had been transported back to a timeless age
where John and Beverly could be still quite content just
picking on the front porch, and never seem to be out of place.
Their love and fascination for rural American folk music has
got to the point where their research and performance hones
and polishes this pristine and absolutely unforgettable
musical branch; a branch where it still flourishes, and you
can thank several gods for that.

- Mick Tems

REVIEW: BEN SINGS A SIMPLE SONG, AND THE CROWD LOVED YOUR MAN

October 8, 2014: Ben
Sands, like his brothers Tommy and Colum, was a member of the
famous catholic musical clan and one of the most influential
folk groups from the North of Ireland, The Sands Family.
His
father and mother were Mick, a fiddler known as The Chief, and
Bridie, who played the accordion. All of Ben's six uncles were
fiddlers, and Mick and Bridie's farm in the townland of Ryan, in
the foothills of the Mourne Mountains in County Down, was a 'ceili
house', where catholics and protestants could gather and enjoy
Irish music.

Like Tommy and Colum, Ben is
a writer of songs; he explores the wistfulness and nostalgia of
days gone by, the precious, lost hours which could so easily
slip through Ireland's fingers. But unlike Tommy ('There Were
Roses') and Colum ('Whatever You Say, Say Nothing'), who wrote
such magnificent and witty songs, Ben glosses over the recent
Troubles; he presents an easy, calm aura, his quiet, deep-brown
voice complementing his gentle work and the simple playing of
his guitar. But Ben's writing is deceptively carefree, and he
dresses each song with some well-chosen lyrics. Above all, his
soft banter, coated with witty barbs, are the icing on the cake.
Club members and guests didn't need any encouragement when he
finished his set, clapping and shouting for an encore. Ben
really made the night.

A
last-minute hurried rehearsal between TV writer-star and guitar
virtuoso Grant Bayhnam and classically-trained vocalist Hilary
Spencer blossomed into a magical duo called Quicksilver – and
Llantrisant Folk Club welcomed the two when they made ease of the
musical acrobatics in an Arts Council of Wales Night Out Scheme at
the Windsor Hotel, Pontyclun.

The
birth of Quicksilver came about because Hilary, who was The Voice
leading the successful a cappella trio Artisan, was hosting a
reception to launch her solo CD, After Image. Hilary’s friend
and guitarist, George Norris, had to drop out at the last minute,
and Hilary started a desperate search for an accompanist.

Hilary
said: “Grant was playing with jazz singer Marilyn Middleton
Pollock in a duo called It’s The Girl, and right out of the blue
she offered him. We couldn’t meet for a rehearsal because of
pressure of work. I supplied Grant with recordings of the CD songs
- in fact, the first time we met was for a rehearsal in the car
park with the After Image party just happening.”

The
launch went very well, and suddenly Sheffield-based Hilary and
Grant, who comes from the Midlands, realised they had that certain
something. “We said: We could do that,” said Hilary.

Ever
since, they have been wowing critics, touring Britain and America
and recording three CDs, including
Make ‘Em Laugh
- a compendium
of 100 years of comic writers, including Joyce Grenfell, Victoria
Wood, Noel Coward, Tom Lehrer and the late, great Jake Thackray.

Hilary
said: “We always enjoy playing at Llantrisant Folk Club –
it’s got such a marvellous and friendly atmosphere.” In fact
Hilary has beaten the Club’s record, appearing solo and as a
member of all her musical combinations on no less than 14
occasions. The Club awarded her life membership, and she took the
stage proudly wearing her members’ card.

Grant
fondly remembers those heady four years when he appeared on Esther
Rantzen’s hit show That’s Life – and he has to thank BBC
comic writer and pianist Richard Stilgoe for recommending him.
“Ex-Lifer” Grant explains: “I had been writing songs and
appearing on the Radio 4 programme Start The Week. Jake Thackray was
That’s Life’s writer and guitarist, and the BBC wanted to
replace him. Richard pointed out me.

“I went for an
audition with hundreds of others. Eventually they whittled it down
to 14, then to two – and they picked me.”

Mighty
squeezebox player John Kirkpatrick
has toured with a plethora of high-profile
outfits, including Steeleye Span, the Richard Thompson Band, Trans-Europe
Diatonique, The Albion Band, Brass Monkey and family ceilidh combo
Mr Gubbins’ Bicycle – and Llantrisant Folk Club loved every
minute of his impressive set on Wednesday, September 21.

Born
in West London and relocated in the Welsh marches in south-west
Shropshire, John has come a long way in the album stakes since
making an appearance on the 1969 Festival At Towersey compilation
and his first impressive solo Jump
At The Sun
1972 offering. So far, he has recorded on over 200 albums, solo,
as a band member or a session musician – but, as he admits:
“I’ve never counted them.”

The
Club has seen him on a few occasions, including John as one-third
of Trans-Europe Diatonique, when he played with the incredible
Riccardo Tesi from Italy and France’s Marc Perrone, and as an
acoustic duo with master songwriter and guitarist Richard
Thompson. This time, solo John amazed everybody with his magical
agility on the anglo-concertina, the one-row melodeon and the
button accordion, blending in his highly original songs with some
proud folksongs which have withstood the test of time. After many
jaw-dropping aerobatics on the button accordion, someone was heard
to whisper admiringly: "Wow - button accordions just don't
get played like that!" After John's closing set, the Club
erupted with deafening roars, whoops and shouts of appreciation -
encores don't get called like that!

Jon
was in The National Theatre productions of Lark Rise and
Candleford, and since 1980 has been contributing music and
choreography to many of the productions at the New Victoria
Theatre in North Staffordshire, as well as occasional work with
The Orchard Theatre Company in Devon and The Crucible Theatre in
Sheffield. He’s an expert at dancing, and he formed the Border
Morris team The Shropshire Bedlams, one of the most revolutionary
teams of its day, which spawned a host of other groups.

He
said: “In earlier days I knew quite a few Welsh folk dance
tunes, as the dances to go with them were done now and again on
the dance circuit where I cut my teeth. I love it, but to me it
has nothing in common with the English stuff that I do. It’s all
to do with the style of dancing – that’s what gives any kind
of music its distinctive voice, and the galumphing and lolloping
that I find so attractive in English dancing doesn’t seem to
exist in other cultures.”

John
and Sally with the CD shop

Photo:
Mick Tems

These days, John
plays in Mr Gubbins’ Bicycle with wife Sally and two of his
sons, including Benji – musician with sensational sell-out folk
band Bellowhead. Sally was with John on his short journey to the
Club, and kept her sparkling eye on all the goodies in the CD
stall.

The horror of the
English August riots was accurately predicted by stunning
songwriter and folk icon Steve Ashley, who guested at the Club in
the Windsor Hotel on Wednesday. Steve, who performed as lead
singer with The Albion Country Band and his own Ragged Robin,
said: “A year ago, I was listening to Radio Four, to Any
Questions, and a Tory was saying about all the cuts his party
would make. He kept on saying: ‘There will be pain.’ So I
wrote a song.”

Steve put his
Guild guitar down and, with his solo voice, sang There
Will Be Pain
– an uncanny insight into the future of swingeing cuts, huge
unemployment and a depleted police force trying but failing to
keep order. In his song, the rioters set fire to businesses and
buildings, in an exact forecast of those terrible nights in the
London suburbs of Tottenham, Croydon and Ealing, with public
disorder spreading throughout the English cities of Leeds,
Liverpool and Birmingham. The audience listened with a silence
that could be cut with a knife.

Steve, who was
born in London and settled in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, is a
supporter of the anti-nuclear campaign CND and Folk Against
Fascism, a widespread movement which successfully counteracted the
BNP’s hijacking of folk culture. He recorded a series of songs
for the UK Peace Movement called Demo
Tapes. The
instigator of two landmark albums,
Stroll On and Speedy
Return, who
was arrested in a non-violent protest at Upper Heyford USAF base
in Oxfordshire, sang his anti-Trident nuclear submarine fleet
song, Ships Of
Shame, to the
Club.

Now Steve is a
recording artist for the prestigious company Topic, which released
his latest CD, Time
And Tide, a
remarkable collection of songs which has been uniformly hailed by
the media everywhere. The well-known national folk magazine fRoots
said: “If British singer-songwriterdom is to enjoy a
renaissance, then it is right and proper that Steve Ashley should
be at the forefront.”

Irish-Canadian
Eileen McGann left Vancouver Island in British Columbia to play
her first date at Llantrisant Folk Club on a two-week British tour
– but she still calls South Wales her home. Her parents were of
Irish stock – her father was a Dubliner, but her mother, who
came from Cork, lived in Merthyr Tydfil. “Coming to Llantrisant
is like coming home for me,” she said. “I last played at the
Club eight years ago, and I have such happy memories.”

Eileen, who many
critics have described as “one of folk music’s most
breathtaking voices” and “a gifted lyric poet and musical
composer”, has a new album out, after 10 years in the CD
wilderness, called A
Pocketful Of Rhymes.

Eileen’s parents
emigrated to Canada, and she was born in Toronto. “There were
lots of Irish in my area, many of them storytellers and very fine
singers,” she said. “I guess it rubbed off in my
songwriting.” Eileen was touring with her partner, musician
David K. She said: “We live on an island, with a mountain range
– tour planning is always governed by the ferry times. We are an
island climate, and we don’t have such harsh winters like Canada
does. A Canadian winter can send temperatures plunging to 40
degrees below, but on the island we have what I like to describe
as a Welsh winter.”

After their flying
start at Llantrisant Folk Club, Eileen and David were taking in
Bodmin Folk Club in Cornwall, Scotland and the Whitby Week
Festival on the North Yorkshire Moors. Their last date was the
busy Fylde Festival in Fleetwood, Lancashire.

Graham Wardrop
thoroughly deserved his encore when the New Zealand master
guitarist and recording studio owner took in Llantrisant Folk Club
in his world tour on Wednesday, July 27 – but when he flies back
to his home in the city of Christchurch, he doesn’t know where
he is going to live. Graham joins thousands of Christchurch
families whose houses have been condemned, following the
disastrous earthquake right under Lyttelton harbour, the city’s
main lifeline, in February. His home in the seafront suburb of New
Brighton sustained heavy damage, but, miraculously, his studio
desk, his Martin guitar and the three valuable guitars which he
fashioned survived without a scratch. Graham was working in the
studio when he was thrown across the floor. The heavy desk
threatened to crash down on him – but he was saved by the
electric wires, which held it safe.

When the tour is
over, Graham faces an uncertain future. “About 18,000 homes have
been condemned, and my house is one of them,” he said. “Local
music venues have all been destroyed. There’s no work in the
city any more. The city centre is a total mess.” You Tube
viewers can see Graham’s wizardry on CTV, Canterbury Television.
The building which housed CTV collapsed, killing 100 staff – and
among them was Graham’s closest friend, CTV owner Murray Wood.
Murray played keyboards on the title track of Graham’s latest
CD, The Speed
Of Love. Every
time Graham plays the song, it’s his personal tribute to a dear
colleague and musician. “The station is back on the air, but in
a reduced format,” he said. “The earthquake has left the city
with a legacy of many tremors – There have been about 8,000
since February, some of them severe.”

With all the
uncertainty facing Graham, who has separated from his wife Fay
after 33 years, something just had to click. While he was touring
in Canada, he met his new love, a musician – and she was flying into Heathrow Airport to join him.

Among the precious
instruments that Graham has carried halfway around the world to
The Windsor Hotel at Pontyclun was the guitar which he designed
and made. He said: “The last time I sold a guitar, the price was
7,000 New Zealand dollars – that’s about Ł3,500. This time,
though, this guitar is not for sale – there are too many
memories stored up, and I couldn’t bear to part with it.”

Tanks
for the memory - Llantrisant
Folk Club celebrated 25 years of a successful Llantrisant to
London walk with a weekend in The Forest Of Dean, culminating in
riding the Dean Forest Railway rails behind pannier tank number
9681 (inset right, photo: Mick Tems), a 62-year-old steam engine which saw service
in South
Wales, including Tondu, Aberbeeg, Barry and Cardiff, before being
withdrawn from the working list and sent to Woodham Brothers'
Barry scrapyard in 1965. The 0-6-0 tank engine languished in Barry
for ten years before being rescued by the Dean Forest preservation
society. Nowadays, this gleaming engine works on the Dean Forest
Railway where its whistle can be heard across the valley.

Twenty-five
years ago, the Folk Club walked from its former base at The New
Inn in Llantrisant to a Folk Against Famine festival, and they
raised over Ł2,500 - quite a considerable sum in those days. The
idea, and most of the organising, came from Beddau
singer-songwriter and life president Jon Heslop, who now lives in
Cornwall. One of the walkers was festival musician, Folk Club
booker, founder and compere Pat Smith, who organised the
celebration weekend. Among the five walkers were Folk Club
chairman Mike Greenwood, accountant Pete Law and the late Siwsann
George, singer and Sain recording artist.

The
Folk Club stayed in the Fountain real ale pub in Parkend, the
terminus of the Dean Forest Railway - most of them in the
bunkhouse, with the 'posh' couples enjoying bed and breakfast.
There was a singaround on the Friday and song session on the
Saturday, and Club member Paul Seligman led a seven-mile nature
walk which showed the sights and sounds of the Forest.

Accordion wizard Sandy
Brechin and young singer Ewan Wilkinson came, saw and conquered
with two stunning sets on July 21 - and the Scottish duo looked
pretty pleased with themselves. Sandy lives in Edinburgh, and he's
a veteran of the Scottish bands Burach, Seelyhoo, The Sandy
Brechin Band plus the incredibly popular ceilidh band The
Sensational Jimi Shandrix Experience. Sandy, who owns the CD
company Brechin All Records, teaches accordion at festival
workshops as well. Ewan has released his debut CD, Lost
In The Day,
with Sandy among the accompanists.

Llantrisant
Folk Club members Andy Jackson and Jillie Hambley are getting
married, after Jillie used her Cornish folk festival singer’s
spot to propose to Andy – and Andy said Yes. Jillie was
originally from the Isle Of Wight, and Andy recently sold his
Pontyclun house and emigrated to the Island to be with her. They
travelled to Bude Folk Festival, and Jillie took full advantage of
a singers' session to pop the question to Andy. He said: "We
still go back to Pontyclun – the island is a beautiful place,
but I do miss the Club.”

Bellowhead
and Belshazzar’s Feast musician Paul Sartin travelled up from
Hampshire to play a Scottish air on his fiddle at the funeral of
Llantrisant Folk Club singer and avid rugby spectator Malcolm
Davies, which was held at Wenallt Chapel in Thornhill Crematorium.
The Civil Celebrant, Claire Mountain, wore a red Cymru rugby shirt
as she took the service, and Folk Club members wore coloured
dress. Malcolm’s three sons and his widow, Chris, invited
everyone to The Church House Inn, Bedwas, where the Folk Club and
Paul raised glasses to Malcolm and joined in with a mighty session
for instruments and voices. Malcolm worked in the catering trade
– including being the chef on BBC Wales’ outside locations -
and lived in Caerphilly.

Club
member and national ceilidh caller John Witcher wanted his 60th
birthday party to be something special – so he and his partner
Therese Evans booked Neuadd Dowlais community centre in Crown
Hill, Llantwit Fardre, hired Newport friends and musicians The Dai
Bach Band and threw a party-cum-ceilidh, with John compering and
calling the dances. John and Therese invited friends, family and
all the Folk Club, and plied them with free real ale and a slap-up
buffet.

You’ve
got to admire and respect Chris Moreton – this easy-going
musician with the winning, likeable grin only has a sketchy plan,
a vague idea, of what goes down well in his vast repertoire, and
almost invariably asks the audience what they would like. It’s
his sheer guitar and banjo-picking mastery that saved a slightly
shambolic set and brought it triumphantly to a glorious close,
with the delighted crowd whooping with joy and shouting for an
encore.

Chris,
a much-travelled musician who lives in the Gwent town of Usk and
loves bluegrass, made his gig at Llantrisant Folk Club a local
celebration, with friends and band members turning out expectantly
to see the great man. Chris expertly played that well-known
Appalachian traditional tune, Angeline
The Baker (or
is it
Angelina Baker?
Chris tends to favour the first one) and
it was the turn of fellow Roots And Galoots band member Roland
Emmanuel, who fitted in with Chris like a satisfying glove.

Chris
introduced double-bass player and partner Wendy Morgan, and with
Roland supporting on vocals, mandolin and guitar (note: their
rendition of Bob Dylan's classic I'll
Keep It With Mine
is a sure-fire heartstopping winner), the makeshift
band just took off and went for gold.

A worldwide website has picked the Llantrisant Mari Lwyd as one of the world’s strangest Christmas and New Year pastimes – and photographer Paul Seligman, a Llantrisant Folk Club member, has negotiated at least Ł40 charity cash for Holme Towers cancer hospice. Paul snapped a mobile phone picture of the Llantrisant Mari and the Carmarthen Mari entering The New Inn in Swan Street, Llantrisant. The American website company Travel And Leisure picked Paul’s picture, choosing it as equal to Father Christmas’s devil partner Krampus (from Austria), Ganna, a highly dangerous Christmas hockey sticks and ball game with no known boundaries (Ethiopia) or Danes jumping off chairs to wish everybody a happy new year. Paul said: “As they are a commercial concern, I negotiated a fee of 75 dollars to be given to Holme Towers cancer hospice to help make up for the cancelled pre-Christmas tour.”

Sara
Grey and her son Kieron Means have this delightful habit
of turning a Llantrisant Folk Club set into an informal kitchen
session of traditional Americana, and the audience just loved it.
Sara, who celebrated her 70th birthday last year, was born in New
England but spent her whole life living in many American states,
and she has collected an entire range of music which reflects the
American way of life. Some songs were composed by new and old
writers – especially Sara and Kieron’s personal favourite,
Utah Phillips’ classic Goodnight-Loving
Trail, which
paints a vivid picture of a harsh cowboy existence.

Sara’s
frailing banjo and her plaintive voice just get better and better.
Kieron is the solid rock, his masterful musicianship

always
understated and unhurried, his voice sure and steady. Sara says of
her son: “Nothing gives me greater pleasure than to make music
with him. He is truly the most sensitive and exciting musician I
have ever worked with – he has pushed me far beyond where I ever
thought I could go.” Sara’s lovely vibrato worked magic on Leavin’
Cheyenne, Cherry
River Line, Resurrection
Day (learned
from the writer, singer and great banjo player Joe Newberry), and
a cracking gospel chorus from the Carolina Outer Banks: Sheep,
Sheep, Don’t You Know The Road.
Veteran singer and Cardiff writer Roy Harris was there to watch
Sara, and he was in fine voice, too. (MT - photo: Mick Tems)

Jonny
Dyer and Vicki Swan served up an
entrancing set of stunning Swedish music, amazing jigs and reels
and strong, memorable folksongs and ballads on Wednesday, November
3, and Club-goers gave them an uproarious encore – they richly
deserved it.

Jonnyand Vicki -

and
the nyckelharpa

Photo:

Mick
Tems

Vicki
was spectacular on her wooden flute and the Scottish smallpipes,
but pride of place went to her fascinating Swedish nyckelharpa,
which translates as “keyed instrument”. Vicki was strongly
influenced by her Swedish mother, and Swedes have played the
nyckelharpa for 600 years. She was inventive and ambitious in
blending the nyckelharpa with British songs, but the instrument
really came into its own when Vicki played a breathtakingly
beautiful Swedish minor waltz which segued into a delicate
Scandinavian song. Jonny was the perfect accompanist, his dancing
guitar and mastery on the accordion complementing Vicki’s sheer
musicianship.

One
of the many appealing factors about Jonny and Vicki is that the
duo fashion an old song and mould it into a sleek and beautiful
work of art - for instance, the old chestnut Billy Boy suddenly
became polished and sparkling when touched with their quiet,
confident magic. Full marks to them! (MT)

Bob
Fox is quite happy with his busy touring life, championing his
beloved industrial North-East through a bevy of sharp, strong
songs – and Llantrisant Folk Club really showed their
appreciation by giving him an uproarious encore when he played a
stunning concert at the Windsor Hotel, Pontyclun, on Wednesday.

Bob
was born in Seaham Harbour, County Durham, straight into a solid
working-class culture of mines and sea-coal. He was the first in
his family to break the tradition of a mining life and not go down
the pit. He paints a vivid and compelling picture of what life was
like before the momentous year of 1984, when Margaret Thatcher
took on the nation’s miners and shut down the coal industry, and
the surreal and bleak landscape that emerged when the miners knew
their cause was lost – as actor Jimmy Nail conveyed in his song
about the Tyne, Big
River, which
Bob has recorded on CD.

Bob
makes sure that the area’s industrial past is not forgotten, but
he celebrates hopes and ambitions of the future, too. His
no-nonsense voice compliments the songs in his well-structured
programme, and the Club audience gets tantalisingly hooked on by
his obvious love for the history and the people. Bob is a fabulous
and efficient musician on the acoustic guitar, but he prefers to
let his songs do the talking – the guitar is just the icing on
the cake, and he never puts a finger wrong.

Bob’s
set kicked off with the rumbustious North-Eastern tale of the
sailor Jack
Crawford, who
made his name fighting the Dutch. Ever since Jack’s day, the
Union Flag has been called the Union Jack whenever a ship flies
it. Bob paid a compliment to prolific songwriter and ballad singer
Ewan McColl and BBC producer Charles Parker when he sang The
Song Of The Iron Road,
one of the series of famous Radio Ballads which the two had
recorded – a50-year-old
masterpiece amazingly brought to life with Bob showing its true
worth. Bob has the magician’s knack of shaping and polishing a
gamut of songs and making them his own; for instance, the
Newcastle “dandling” lullaby Dance
To Yer Daddy
was beautifully transformed, and the well-known Andy M. Stewart
feelgood jig-song The
Ramblin’ Rover
(about the dangers of drinking too much, an affliction known to
too many Celtic musicians) was just superb, with the audience
eating out of Bob’s hand as they belted out the chorus. Verdict?
Stupendous. (MT)

The
Listings - the comprehensive all-Wales folk events diary - are
back! The Listings are really essential if you're stuck for a night out or you want to see your favourite artist. All you need
to do is just click on Listings on the left of the screen; you can
view concerts, clubs, twmpathau, ceilidhs, barn dances and all
sorts of happenings - including sessions, dance organisations and
workshops. Folk events across the borders in England are being
added, too.

Jo
Freya presented Llantrisant Folk Club with a marvellous 30th
birthday present when she played at the The Windsor Hotel on
Wednesday, 15 September. The singer, musician and composer gave
her all, and the delighted audience showed their appreciation by
roaring for an encore.

Jo
(pictured left here) was promoting her new album, Female
Smuggler, but
she paid tribute to another songwriter who died of cancer at an
early age – Lal Waterson, younger sister of the famous Waterson
family. Lal wrote strange, beautiful songs until her death 10
years ago, and her timeless, unique work – with its intelligent,
biting humour - lives on.

Jo,
who was a session musician for two of Lal’s albums, formed The
Lal Waterson Project, which has recorded a CD which is a tribute
to Lal. Jo’s two accompanying musicians in her trio, brass
player Jude Abbott and guitarist Neil Ferguson from the band
Chumbawamba, supplied her with tight, startling harmonies and
brilliant arrangements, Jude’s trumpet and flugelhorn trading
places and endlessly swapping riffs with Jo’s clarinet and deep
saxophone.

Not
a song or a tune was wasted by the trio. Jo’s sweet voice sang a
gamut of songs, composed by herself or by Lal – the deliciously
complicated title track of the CD, the bitter-sweet Roses,
where Neil took the part of the lone pianist to perfection, Long
Vacation, Wilson’s
Arms, Oh
America - song
after song just trotted out, but the hypnotic Breton andro Boit
Portu, just
about topped the lot. The trio ended with Lal’s breathtaking Migrating
Bird, a
heart-stopping lullaby which had Lal’s lovable stamp on it.

Of
course, none of this would have been possible had it not have been
for the Night Out scheme, the Arts Council Wales grants project
aimed at getting music events in village halls, local pubs and
community centres. The Club applied for the birthday grant, and
ACW came up with the money. The Night Out scheme was the idea of
now-retired Folk Club member John Prior, who worked for ACW and
was awarded the MBE for his services to the arts. (MT)

Paul
Frowen, the Folk Club’s vice-chairman, came up with a novel way
for anyone who can’t stand the simple words of Happy
Birthday being
sung again and again - he’s composed a five-verse celebratory
song, with chorus, and it all goes to the tune of Beethoven’s
triumphant Ode
To Joy.

Paul, who used to be
a trumpeter with the Welsh band Bando and does floor spots in
Welsh and in English, tried the song out with the Folk Club –
who voted it a hit. Here are the stirring verses and the wonderful
chorus:

Happy
30th birthday to us! Llantrisant Folk Club celebrated its
30th anniversary by ascending Snowdon (in Welsh, Yr Wyddfa, the
highest mountain in Wales and England) on the Snowdon Mountain
Railway train and then walking down from the summit. Twelve
intrepid walkers started down the Snowdon Ranger track to the
Snowdon Ranger station on the Welsh Highland Railway, and many
more caught the train down on the mountain railway. It was a
perfect summer's day, and you could see for miles. From Snowdon
summit, six kingdoms could be seen; Wales, Ireland, Scotland,
England, Mann and the Kingdom of Heaven.

The
Club stayed at The Bunkhouse in The Glan Aber Hotel in Betws-y-Coed,
about a half-hour's drive to Llanberis station on the Snowdon
Mountain Railway, and ran a folk club-cum-session on the Friday
and Saturday nights. Neil and Meg Browning and their daughter
Kate, from North Wales family band Never Mind The Bocs, dropped in
and played some beautiful Welsh songs and tunes - and NMTB had
been hastily booked for a Wednesday, following Keith Kendrick's
illness.

And...
a very special Diolch yn Fawr to treasurer, compere and organiser
Pattie Smith for booking the hotel and trains, being so efficient
and making the Club's birthday go with a resounding bang.